Relative frustration about relative sound

N

neon glow

New member
Alright, for some reason I feel like I came home after a long travel. Feels nice. :rolleyes:

anyway, :)

This is long post, describing my problem and I will extremely appreciate if you read it all through, and see if you can suggest anything. Thanks a lot...

I have this frustration, which I don't have the knowledge to overcome. I am a very budget music maker. My question is about achieving decent sound quality, so here's things i have which are relevant to subject:

M-Audio LX4 2.1 speakers
Sennheiser HD270 Headphones
Shure E3c Headphones
Laptop speakers :) (important element, btw)
Tonns of pro samples, used as VSTi/DXi in Sonar 4 Producer, controlled from the keyboard through midi.

Here's not so relevant things:

Athlon64 3000+
2gigs of ram (400Mhz dual channel)
Delta 1010LT
3 different sized hdds
Radioshack wired
60 bux radioshack microphone (shame, but it's not all about material things)
few guitars, casio almost full kboard, bass, mixer, shaker, harmonica, and mechanical metronome :D


Now, how can I make sure I don't have too much lows, too much highs, etc? I record music, and listen to it using some headphones (almost always Shure E3c). Now, when the composition is ready, i'm sending it to some friends to listen, and test it on different speakers. Here's what happens:

Example 1 (highs):
The last piece I made, I sent to my friend, and he told me that apparently the guitar is too loud and bright, and kills vocals. I heard it on Shure E3c, and it's perfect. But then I listen on Sennheiser HD270 (they are crap, because they make highs stand out like hell), so I heard exactly what he meant. In them the guitar seemed bright, like thin glass breaking. Now, usually in M-Audio LX4 speakers everything that i make sounds good, so i won't mention them.

Example 2 (lows):
You know how if you listen to a professionally done song on crappy speakers it still sounds all balanced. For example, even on laptop speakers, which have no bass whatsoever, you will still hear some bass melody there, just without low punches. Well, in my songs, the bass is maybe too low, or something. On laptop speakers it just seems like it's not there at all. Like i didn't record it. On Shure it sounds great. Also, it sometimes seems, even on Shure, that bass is a little like in a barrel. It occupies the whole sound image, and kinda melts with things. I don't like it. I like it to be nice and punchy, but not to be like in a barrel, making the whole song sound.. egh.. mono.. or smth like that. I can't think of a way to correct it. At the same time, you can't really clearly hear it pretty much, so if i make it even quieter, it will not be effective anymore. I use professional sound samples for bass, like Spectrasonics Trilogy.

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So I listen to music a lot, in order to see how professional things sound in my Shure headphones, and equalize my music like that, but it still doesn't work out. The music is still completely dependent on the speakers, and not like just the quality is worse generally, but it's making it sound different, and on one headphones guitar stands out, on another it disappears, on third it becomes too high, damn it. I want to know which criteria to use, how to make music sound fine on most speakers. How do they manage it in professional studios? Maybe this opinion of mine that monitors are supposed to be high quality speakers with even frequency response is a dillusion? Maybe I have to make music on crappy headphones, because most people use them? I'm tired of tellign people that it sounds bad because headphones are not good enough. I also hate saying it. How to deal with this quality problem?

Thank you for reading this, hope to find some answers.
 
Ok, to be more to the point, here's an instrumental example of a composition I made recently (took one whole day). I am a very basic guitar player (just chords/rhythm), and mostly play keyboards. So, my question is not about what's wrong with the playing and stuff, but what's wrong with quality/mastering. Please, also think of it as of an accompaniment to the song, coz it sounds a little dry w/o vocals. So here it is:
 
As an instrumental, that is a good mix. I think if you are going to add vocals, then as Halion stated, it may be too bright. You will probably have to tone some of the upper mid frequencies down, or else the vocals will get buried. If you make the vocals louder, then it will overpower the whole mix. I don't hear too much bass, so I think that end sounds good. Everything is clean, just may have lots of sound in one spot.(center). That is, again, if you need room for vocals. Otherwise, nice playing. Very clean.
Ed
 
The quick answer is don't mix on headphones. No matter how good they are they just won't work for mixing. I know you already have speakers but you can't use the headphones for any sonic desicions at all. The rest just comes from experiance.
 
Thanks a lot. That's both helpful and encouraging. Just happens that when I record it's a day, but when I mix, it's already nighttime, so I gotta use headphones :). However, this whole thing was mixed using headphones, with just occasionals check-ups and corrections on speakers, and you say it's a good mix. Maybe coz I know imperfections of my headphones, and reference my music to professionally recorded stuff, in terms of sound specifics... It kinda works too i guess... It's just that cheap headphones eliminate details, whereas expensive ones alternate details. If you know how to antiderive them (damn college), it's gonna be fine... Or am I wrong somewhere?
 
Just read it. Interesting info there, however, I think it's taken care of in my case, since I tend to adjust sound for both speakers and headphones. I guess what I need is something more deep/technical, that deals with actual numbers and physics of sound...
 
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